Court Upholds Affirmative Action in Admissions

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled, 5 to 4, in overturning a lower court’s ruling that the admissions policy used by the law school, on Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, illegally discriminated against white applicants.“We are satisfied that the law school’s admissions policy sets appropriate limits on the competitive consideration of race and ethnicity,” the majority said in its written opinion.“The record indicates that the law school intends to consider race and ethnicity to achieve a diverse and robust student body only until it becomes possible to enroll a‘critical mass’ of underrepresented minority students through race-neutral means.” The dissenting judges wrote:“This case involves a straightforward instance of racial discrimination by a state institution.””